M
by My Misguided Fairytale
Summary: M is for Murder. MarikxMalik Bronzeshipping.


Title: M

Summary: M is for Murder. [MarikxMalik]

A/N: Short, drabblish piece on the twisted relationship between the two personalities. I subscribe to the belief that Marik suffers from schizophrenia, so I believe that it's really only one person, so this story takes place mainly inside Marik's mind. The capitalized "He's" refer to the darker personality. Enjoy!

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_**M**_

_**I. (M)argins **_

It was the root of the problem that he couldn't seem to care anymore about his control, and he knew that He was taking advantage of that.

_When there was nothing further to live for, how does one exist at all? And how does one die?_

_He_ certainly knew the correct responses to those questions, Marik thought, because He was the one with all the answers. At least, he assumed so.

Marik woke for the first time with that sickeningly dull _thump_ in his stomach like he'd just swallowed lead—_and perhaps he had_—to find his father's blood covering his hands and wondered just how that had gotten there.

As he screamed he began to doubt his sanity.

Every time he looked at his hands he saw the blood, sticky, thick, and darker than wine, covering the fingers, stuck under the nails, running up the arms even though he's sure gravity doesn't work that way but then the blackness crowds his vision once more, and he finds himself on the floor hours later, the back of his head throbbing with pain and the skin on his hands itching like the blood is still there, so he washes his hands again in a copper basin for the fifth time that day.

Ishizu is starting to worry, but He tells her that she has nothing to fear as long as she stays out of His way, and something about it being too late for those kinds of apologies, Marik doesn't know, because he's dissolved into that fuzzy dark place again where a deep, twisted voice tells him all sorts of things, some confidently supercilious, others positively indecent.

_Tick, Tock, don't stop, let me back in…please?_

So he does, and receives a _thank you, hikari mine_ in response.

_**II. (M)anipulation**_

That same voice tells him to _wake up_ and so he does, finding himself face to face with someone who looks an awful lot like him, except for the bone-like tangle of hair and those _eyes_ and those _teeth_.

Marik remembers a tale that goes something like _what big eyes you have…_

_The better to see you with, my dear_—Marik starts, violently, his eyes locked to his other's mouth, sure that he has not moved, not even _blinked_, yet how could he have heard those words…?

"Who are you?" Marik asks, slowly.

"I am _us_," He responds. "Do you not believe me?"

The unanswered skeptical _no _rings through the space regardless, as Marik remembers the part that goes _what big teeth you have_…

"Hmm, the better to eat you with, my dear," He answers, and Marik shivers.

Marik looks at his other's hands and finds them stained with blood, and he gasps and the next thing he knows he is lying on the floor and the room is dark and he wonders again how he has gotten here and just _what_ has he done this time?

He finds out later when he notices the bloodstains on his shirt, and without ceremony or reaction tugs it off and searches for a new one. There is blood on his feet as well, and when he walks the length of the room he leaves behind footprints and smears that resemble shapes and sounds, like gazing at clouds only this is hardly an innocent school-child's game, this is _real_, he can no longer pretend anymore that it is not, he sees the proof with his eyes every time he looks at His hands.

_Alright, Marik, I'll play along, for you…_

_**III. (M)ajor**_

He is with him again—Marik wonders if He _ever _leaves his side, and realizes that such thinking will only make the paranoia grow even stronger, so he stops, and accepts it, even though he knows that is what He wants—and He is in a rather talkative mood today, an unusual state for Him.

"I will kill the Pharaoh," He says, so conversationally that they might as well have been discussing the weather. Marik did not need to go to the surface and look outside to know that for the first time in months it was raining, raindrops thick and dark as blood that stung his arms when they hit him, weighing down his clothes with their mass.

"The Pharaoh is dead," Marik responded gutturally. Marik had learned not to encourage Him, _bad _things happened when he did, worse than usual—

"No, he is very much alive," He responds. "Do you not believe me?"

_No_, answers Marik. "Prove it."

He chuckles, and it is a dark sound, like he has never tried to laugh before and did not quite get it right. "Look inside yourself. Look inside _me_."

_**IV. (M)ariposa**_

Ishizu is with him and holds his shaking body as he sobs, barely able to get out any words at all as his hands twitch, fingers locking into place and too-short fingernails scrabbling for purchase against his skin. Marik wants to hurt Him, but he cannot, so he settles for hurting himself instead.

"So much blood," he moans, rubbing his fingers together, trying to get the feeling to go away, but it never has, never _will_—

"What are you talking about?" Ishizu asks.

"My hands…so much _blood_," Marik cries.

"Oh, Marik," she whispers. "There is nothing there."

_**V. (M)etamorphosis**_

_You are the beginning, and I am the end_, He told Marik.

_Then what is the middle? _Marik asked. _Every good story has to have a middle, right? Otherwise it'd be like a sandwich with just the bread_.

_Hmm,_ replies his other half. _I believe we shall both be the middle…together…so do not disappoint me…do not resist me…_

No, never. Not on your life. _Indeed_.

_I never have, _responds Marik.

_He allows Marik to see outside into His world, where the pain and triumph is so thick it becomes viscous in the air, and His eyes glitter from it, like a ruby or a diamond—_

_Diamonds aren't meant to be covered up,_ He says, wrapping an arm around Marik, and it occurs to him that He has always been talking about him, even in those days of origin and opening.

_Go away_, Marik tells Him, and He laughs. He has gotten better at it, with practice. Hardly a day goes by where He does not seek his company, and he has gotten used to the routine.

_I certainly will not_, He responds. _You need me. We…complete_ _each other. _

Marik is silent.

_Do you not believe me?_

Marik refuses to answer, because he is not the one with the answers, _He_ is, and the touch and the taste burn like acid as the truth is branded into his mind and _He _knows very well that the answer has always been yes.

_Yes. I believe you_.

Marik lets him in on one additional truth as He gathers his hands in His own, smearing the blood there, _his _blood, into the skin. _It will never wash away, you know_, He says. _The blood. You will never be clean_.

_Yes. I believe you_.

_And,_ He continues, _it is all…because…of me. _Marik tightens his grip on his other's hands as he succumbs to the blackness seeping into his vision, hearing his sister's hurried voice screaming at him to _please, just wake up! _he knows he is about to awake from this cocoon of a nightmare into something much deeper, much darker. _And, _He finishes, _I…will never…leave you_.

Marik cracks open his eyes, the darkness blinding him in the most enlightening way.

_Yes. I believe you_.

**End.**

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A/N: Hey, first published story on this account! Let me know what you think, please?


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